We’re just happy our little girl is alive,” said Jessica’s father, Michael Paulsen, as though the state of being alive were itself a sufficient cause for happiness and not a prison of its own, at least in a phenomenological sense. “There were some days when I honestly thought I would never see her again.”

“These last few weeks have been a living nightmare,” he added, failing to adequately wrestle with the themes of impermanence and meaninglessness that have troubled theologians and philosophers for millennia.

The article soon afterwards devolves into a conversation about the work of Hegel, Berlin, and Nietzsche. It is incredible.